The Profile Descriptor File contains information relating to the services
to be installed in the profile and contains 4 major sections:
- Section 1: Profile Defaults
- Section 2: Services in the profile
- Section 3: Default values for each service
- Section 4: Mapping for profile properties
Section 1: Profile Defaults
This part of the PRF file contains values that apply to the entire profile
specified below the [General] section
Under the [General] section, the following entries are used.
- ProfileName=<Name of the Profile>
This entry specifies the name to be used when creating the profile.
- DefaultProfile= [Yes/No]
If the value is set to Yes, then the profile being created will be set
as the default profile. By default, this entry is set to Yes.
- OverwriteProfile= [Yes/No]
Determines whether the profile being created should overwrite an
existing profile with the same name. If the value is set to No, and a
profile with the same name, as that specified in the ProfileName
entry, does exist, then the profile will not be created. The default
value is No.
- DefaultStore=<Service ID>
<Service ID> corresponds to a service that is to be used as the
default store. The Service ID's are got from the entries listed in the
[Service List] section, described below. By default, the value is set
to Service2, which corresponds to the Microsoft Exchange Server
Service. This is determined by looking at the [Service List] section.
In that section look for an entry whose name is Service2. The value of
this entry is the actual name of the service.
Section 2: Services in the Profile
This part of the file lists all the services that are to be installed on in
the profile. The names of the Profiles are listed as entries under the
[Service List] section. By default the [Service List] section is as below:
[Service List]
Service1=Microsoft Exchange Client
Service2=Microsoft Exchange Server
Service3=Personal Address Book
The services listed in this section will be installed only if the settings
associated with each of these services are valid. If the Automatic Profile
Generator encounters a problem with one or more of the settings associated
with a service, it may not install that service in the profile being
created.
Section 3: Default Values for each service
This section of the file contains service specific information for the
services listed under the [Service List] section. For each of the services
listed under the [Service List] section, there should be a section with
that service name. This section should contain entries for each
configurable option for the service.
By default, there are the following sections:
[Service1]
This section contains configurable options for the Microsoft Exchange
Client. The different settings available in the Microsoft Exchange
Client, are enumerated in Section 4 of the PRF file, which is described
below.
[Service2]
This section contains settings for the Microsoft Exchange Server service.
The different configurable settings available in the Microsoft Exchange
Server service, are enumerated in Section 4 of the PRF file.
[Service3]
This section contains settings for the Microsoft Exchange Personal
Address Book service. The different configurable settings available in
the Microsoft Exchange Personal Address Book service, are enumerated in
Section 4 of the PRF file.
Section 4: Mapping for profile properties
This section of the file contains a listing of all the supported properties
for each of the services that Automatic Profile Generator supports.
For each service, there is a section, under Section 4, with the name of
that service. This section contains all the settings for that service that
the Profile Generator supports. By default, there are sections for
[Microsoft Exchange Client], [Microsoft Exchange Server], [Personal
Folders], [Personal Address Book] and [Microsoft Mail].
For each entry in the [Service List] section, there must be a corresponding
section in Section 4 of the file. So, for example, if under the [Service
List] section, there is an entry:
Service1=Microsoft Exchange Client
There must be a section called [Microsoft Exchange Client] in Section 4 of
this file. The [Microsoft Exchange Client] section contains descriptions of
all the options that can be set for the Exchange Client. Each description
contains the type of that entry and an internal id number. There is also a
text description of the entry which explains the use of that option and the
values that can be assigned to the option.
NEWPROF.EXE reads Section 4, to determine how to interpret each of the
options. The textual description of each option is commented out and hence
NEWPROF.EXE ignores these lines.
Using the above example, if in the [Service List] section, we have the
entry:
Service1=Microsoft Exchange Client
There should a section called [Service1] in Section 3 of the file as well
as a section [Microsoft Exchange Client] in Section 4.
For each entry specified in the [Service1] section, there must be a
corresponding entry in the [Microsoft Exchange Client] section which
describes the type (whether the option is a Boolean variable, integer,...)
and an internal id number. If the corresponding entry is not present in the
[Microsoft Exchange Client] section, the Automatic Profile Generator
(Newprof.exe) will not be able to interpret that option and will display an
error message.
Hence, in order to have Newprof.exe set a particular option for a service,
that service id might be listed in the [Service List] section. The option
must be listed with a valid value in the [Service id] section, where
Service id is the entry name corresponding to that service in the [Service
List] section. There must also be a section corresponding to the Service
Name in Section 4 of the file, and this section should have the description
information for the option that we need to set.